Surfrider SoCal Chapters Merge

 

Channeling The Power of Three

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

After years of collaborating on beach and environmental advocacy programs three of the Surfrider Foundation's Orange County, CA, chapters made it official and merged into one combined chapter.

So, in 2023, Surfrider's Huntington/Seal Beach chapter and Newport Beach chapter became the North Orange County chapter. 

 

Representing a 14-mile coastline of some of California's most beautiful and iconic beaches, the new NOC chapter will be better positioned to maximize the power of its members by working toward common goals and sharing resources.

 

The new alliance is also going to focus on expanding inland to encourage people who might not go to the beach often to come and enjoy the ocean. It's important for them to know the big role they can play in protecting it by reducing trash and other pollution that flows to the ocean through inland waterways and drainage systems. 

 

Much of the trash that people see on the beach comes from someplace else. Everything drains to the ocean. Discarded cigarettes, plastic bags and utensils, Styrofoam containers, bottles and cans, and other debris make their way to the sea. Even garden fertilizers and chemicals reach the ocean through groundwater runoff.  

 

In 2022 Surfrider volunteers collected more than 10,000 pounds of trash that washed down the Santa Ana River toward the beach outlet between Huntington and Newport beach.        

New co-chairs Richard Busch and John Wadsworth are eager to get the chapter's environmental message out to the community and elected officials about the need to protect our oceans, waves, and beaches. "It's not just a coastal issue," says Wadsworth. "We're all in it together."

 

This is why Surfrider chapters are doing things to benefit all of us. Cleaning beaches, testing ocean water, promoting recycling and sustainability, showing how to plant "Ocean Friendly Gardens" that are good for the environment, and more.

And it's why Surfrider's North Orange County chapter is glad to be on board, channeling the power of three. 

 

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.

Threatened Species Red List

 

More Animals Facing Extinction

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

Having "a red-letter day" means a day that is pleasantly noteworthy. In banking it celebrates the last day of the financial year.

But, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature puts an animal on its Red List of Threatened Species that's a day of sadness. It signifies that the animal is approaching extinction.

At its December conference in Montreal, Canada, the IUCN added 700 new species facing extinction to the list, including a variety of sea life - the Dugong, a marine mammal related to the manatee, 44% of the world's abalone, and the Pillar Coral found throughout the Caribbean. 

 In all, the Red List currently totals 150,388 species at risk of extinction. 

 

Threats range from hunting, poaching, and accidental capture in fishing nets to commercial development and climate change. Pollution and loss of food sources, such as underwater sea grasses, are other threats. 

Dr. Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director General, said that we need to make “profound changes to our economic system, or we risk losing the crucial benefits the oceans provide us with. He emphasized, “We simply cannot afford to fail.”

In the case of the abalone, the IUCN states, "The most immediate action people can take is to eat only farmed or sustainably sourced abalones." 

 

With hundreds of governmental and nonprofit organization members around the world, the IUCN is actively seeking to get everyone involved in saving at-risk species from extinction. There is little time left for the Vaquita, a tiny member of the porpoise family native to Baja California. The rarest of all marine mammals, there are estimated to be only 10 Vaquitas remaining. 

Whenever an animal or plant species disappears from the planet, it diminishes all of us, creating a space that is impossible to fill. That’s why it is so important to help preserve the environment and reduce our carbon footprints. 

Where did the Dodo go?

What will we do when the Dugong is gone?

The Barbary Lion, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.

One-of-a-kind names and faces.

Now just empty spaces.

Note: When SurfWriter Girls first wrote about the Vaquitas in September 2017 there were close to 30 Vaquitas left in the ocean. So many have been lost since then. Here’s the story link on Vaquita. 

 

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.